


Gamble

by jenni3penny



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25884502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni3penny/pseuds/jenni3penny
Summary: Jack’s gamble pays off...
Relationships: Jethro Gibbs/Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane
Comments: 27
Kudos: 117





	Gamble

He hadn't been keeping track of days or hours. That was pretty impossible, considering the room was dark and food or water, what there was of it, came rarely.

He'd been counting lights.

Ever since he'd gotten his ass handed to him by Quintero's guys and been shoved into the dark, dirty room, he had been counting the number of times the light under the door had come on. Or counting how many times it had gone off. He had paid attention to the number of footstep shadows, studying the shift of feet and the differences between them.

Light on: seven times.

Light off: six.

Four guys, maybe five.

They kept sending the same (large and violent) one in with food or water since he'd tried to escape. Twice. Now they were near starving him to keep him weak, hazy, solitary. He was in chains that took him to one opposite corner of the room but not near enough to the door. His waiter had stopped coming anywhere near the table, too…

They barely spoke outside the heavy door so even knowing Spanish barely helped translate their heavily accented words. There weren't many spoken to begin with and he was getting to the point where words were starting to just sound like shapes in the mouth.

He hadn't spoken since the first day…

“ _Nothing to say, huh? Huh?_ ” had preceded knuckles connecting with his left cheekbone. The guy with the food had impeccable English, no discernible accent of any kind.

He had to wonder what their endgame was.

Slowly starve him out while they tried to ransom the Navy?

Time had slowly passed and they had to know that the United States government would likely tell them to eat shit sooner than they would pay a ransom for an aged, often insubordinate, and usually disgruntled federal agent.

Something had to be keeping him alive while he made an effort to piss as far away from where he slept as humanly possible.

Someone had leverage.

 _Someone_ was playing a game that was keeping him alive.

The light went off.

Seven days. One week.

He wasn't sure he could make another.

  
***

He started seeing her at night. Or, rather, whatever time ‘night’ was, when the light went off and everything went full dark.

(He'd seen them all. He was delusional with hunger, thirst, or likely a head injury. His head ached and he knew that not one of them were _really_ there. But he had his boys close by sometimes, he had Ellie asking him not to give up - " _Please, Gibbs… We can’t do this without you_.")

Ellie always ended up sounding like Kelly…

But she came at night, soft hands carefully pulling his head into her lap as she sat up against the wall. Her fingertips would brush back and forth over his temple, gentling down his face until she could touch the brittle skin beneath each eye.

“ _Close your eyes. You’ve gotta sleep_.” It wasn’t Shannon, though sometimes their voices had the same sway, wavering back and forth until they were one.

Red hair went lighter and brighter, hurting the ache behind his eyes but easing it, too. Shannon’s smile had always been more… private.

This smile was absolutely uncontainable.

And fighting sleep was hard when she was his night-song. It was impossible to ignore the version of her that his brain had supplied him, so hazy soft in one of her sweaters and jeans and her hair loose. The mixed scent of spiced perfume and lotion and soap that he had come to recognize filled up his brain while she leaned her face over his and gave him the pleasure of that same smile.

“ _Just make it through tomorrow, okay?_ ”

***

“You sure you can do this?”

She would have been offended by the question if there hadn’t been such sincere concern on his face and in the way he touched his fingertips to the back of her hand. Jack met his dark eyes, realizing very suddenly how much the week had seemed to age him, mildly weathering his good looks. She simply nodded, feeling Nick’s fingertips brush away and grabbing his hand to squeeze lightly in reassurance.

“One of us can do it, Jack.” Ellie’s offer from the backseat of the Suburban was just as concerned, just as sincere, and equally as frustrating from a professional standpoint. But then they had lost any ruse of professionalism days before, in interrogation. She had done a fast calculation of (terrible) risk and still threatened to murder the head of an internationally known drug cartel, an arms dealer with more money and means than she could ever imagine. It hadn’t been her smartest or smoothest moment on the job… but it had led to Torres later kissing her cheek so softly in appreciation that she had started to tear up after.

“ _We’ll find him for you, corazón. I promise._ ”

“This is my fight, El,” she whispered into the quiet car. “Quintero will know me.”

“It won’t be Quintero. He’ll send someone in.”

“He’ll be watching,” she corrected, with a shrug. “He won’t miss this.”

Jack nodded forward as two dark vehicles entered the opposite end of the parking lot, an SUV right ahead of an old and beat up looking van. Tinted windows in front, none in back. No license plates, no distinctive markings. They stayed back far enough that she couldn’t discern the exact color of either of them, they were just dark. She licked along her lips, about to try to say something pithy but nearly jumped in surprise as her phone rang from her lap instead.

All three of them paused their breathing as his name came up on the caller ID, the screen lighting the inside of the car and making her heart stutter.

Of course it wasn’t actually him…

“Well, I think I have a date,” she joked lamely, answering with the swipe of her thumb and a forced gulp of breath. “Hello, Rafael.”

***

He had started to see her a little differently than before, more of her age showing through, more of her resilience evidenced by her persistence. He had known that Jack was a strong and comparable woman - but this was different somehow. And he could see it in the way she walked across the parking lot with relaxed steps, her shoulders back and head up. She had walked through their entire miserable and exhausting week with that same gait, that same strength and confidence.

Tim knew she didn’t have a weapon on her. She had insisted on not breaking Quintero’s rules for the exchange, demanding they follow her lead. He was stuck on the northernmost point of the parking lot, half hidden by shadows and a couple sedans, acting as her defense while Torres went West and Ellie stayed by the Suburban.

His heart jammed up in his throat as a man got out of the first vehicle to the south. He was shorter and well dressed, bandy but jaunty as he walked toward her. McGee had never felt such a sudden protective surge in regards to Sloane, not until he saw the cocky and disdainful grin the man had plastered on his face. He wanted to shoot him for that grin and for the way he gave Jack an obviously leering once over. He appreciated the fact she had her tan overcoat cinched in by the belt.

“Tim, I can’t get a clean line of sight on him. She’s right in the middle.”

He nodded before radio responding to the voice in his ear, hearing slight stress in the younger man's tone. “I’ve got him, Nick. Just be ready to cover her.”

He shrewdly watched her speak as she subtly shifted right, too far away from them to hear her voice or even try to read what she was saying but having heard Nick’s comment. He watched her lift the thumb drive he had given her from her pocket and wave it back and forth slightly before she pointed toward the van. The cartel member laughed at her and it took everything in him to hold still and not go for punching the bastard right in the face.

"He's alive, right? This is a lot of show if he isn't." Ellie spoke quietly over the closed transmission, as though speaking louder would draw unwanted attention.

"Trust Jack," he answered as a directive, squinting and taking aim as Sloane handed over the flash drive. Within a moment the cartel member had turned, stalking quickly back toward the car. Tim flinched slightly forward, feeling his weight shift as he kept his sight on the man. In his peripheral he saw Jack lift her hand in a silent stop motion that he knew had to be directed at every one of them, even at a distance.

"What the hell? It was supposed to be Gibbs first and then the drive." Nick snapped. "We have no way to track them."

Ellie's voice was a quick answer. "She did what she had to."

***

She held her breath as she ignored them, biting her teeth together and forcing herself to stand still as Manuel leaned into the front seat of the sporty black car he'd arrived in. She had recognized the little shit first thing - all bravado and slime, no fortitude. She wasn't surprised that Quintero had sent his younger brother to make the deal. Jack lifted her jaw, forced herself to put her shoulders up as he spoke to the rest of the people in the car. He handed the flash drive off to the back seat occupants, the windows tinted too dark for her to make out anything besides the hand off.

He leaned against the car a moment later, half turning backward toward her and winking. Jack let the contempt show on her face, rolling her eyes as he just chuckled in response to her annoyance. She fantasized about a knife and a dark alley and two minutes with either of the Quinteros. Right between the ribs, no regrets later.

Her attention snapped back when Manuel nodded and ducked back into the open window, his back to her while he spoke to his companions. Jack watched, forcing her lungs to slow as she watched him straighten and take a step back. Her hand went up slightly in the direction she knew McGee was waiting in, not knowing what she was even asking for but unconsciously needing the connection, needing the reminder that he was there, at her back, ready for whatever came next.

"Ya estuvo, déjenlo.”

She missed half of whatever it was he was yelling toward the van but she caught the end, the part about leaving ‘him’. _Oh, thank Christ_ …

“You stay right there, gorgeous,” he told her, pointing her way as he moved around the car, aiming for the passenger seat. “You don’t move until we’re gone.”

She bit back on the urge to tell him off, her teeth pressed so tightly together that her jaw throbbed. Instead of responding vocally she just shrugged and lifted both hands, still keeping her breath even as the van door rolled open and they dumped a body onto the asphalt. Her throat constricted, panic ratcheting her heartbeat faster, sending it up the back of her throat as she grit her teeth even harder. The single thing that kept her still was the knowledge that every one of them was heartless enough to put a bullet in his head if she didn’t do as she was told. Her hands went fully open, even as they shook.

He was motionless as the cars started moving, half curled and facing away from her in the lot. Her body jolted, terrified as he slid onto his back, her lungs stuck still until she could see his hand try to reach his face and give up instead, dropping aside as his legs flopped out. His other hand was awkwardly leaned against his side, palm up as his body went completely lax. Once the van’s driver door broached the parking lot’s exit she was already halfway to him.

"Nicholas, you follow them," she ordered over the radio as she ran. " _Now_."

"Got 'em. Don't let him move. His arm’s jacked."

"Just go!" Her impatient answer echoed across the parking lot a few seconds before she heard the whine of his bike curving around behind her.

"Ambulance is on the way, Jack. Two blocks back."

She ignored the comforting quality of Ellie's voice in her ear, the genuine silken softness of it. She couldn't ignore the fact that she could hear and feel Tim catching up to her as she closed in on Gibbs, all her emotions wadded up in her throat and staggering her breath. She was thankful it was him, that of the three of them it was the most experienced, the calmest, his most loyal.

She needed him at her side for what they found when Gibbs looked up at her and blinked, bloodshot blue eyes and complete confusion. His lips parted as she sank down beside him, McGee’s hand on her arm and trying to lever her slower as she dropped to her knees.

“You there?”

She hadn’t realized how visceral a reaction his voice could cause until her body shocked farther forward over his in response to the question. Tim’s hand slipped up her arm and off her shoulder as he knelt himself. Both the younger man’s hands went to either side of Gibbs’ head, framing it still to keep him from moving too much. She realized as she watched the movement that there was a considerable stain of blood through his greasy hair, probably from a head injury, a possible concussion the reason his eyes were so glassy as he watched her. She forced herself to meet his eyes instead of trying to catalog his injuries, her lashes dipping slightly when she found him staring at her expectantly.

“I’m right here,” she spoke softly, unable to make her voice rise much past a sad and choked whisper. She could feel hot tears against her cheeks, not realizing until then that she had begun crying. He was a rugged and rough mess below her, his shirt stained by layers of salted sweat and dirt, ripped along the bottom hem. He was grimy, dirty, his skin discolored by more than just mottled and multi-hued bruises.

“Just stay still, Boss. We’ve got ya.”

“You real?” The left hand rose while the right hand stayed limp along his side, reaching for her coat collar and digging it into his grubby fingers. She felt the slight tug of him clenching his fist in the fabric and she nodded instantly in answer, forcing herself to try and smile as he looked up at her face.

Jack nodded over him, putting the backs of her knuckles against his jaw and leaving them there, just a slight pressure to help keep his head still. “I’m very real, hon, _I promise_.”

“Hey,” Ellie added gently from behind her shoulder, “we’ve been looking for you.”

***

He kept his eyes shut against the light, feeling its brightness burn past his eyelids and start frying his retinas. It was too bright, too white in the hospital room. If he'd had the voice and will to complain he could have… but the headache that had lodged itself between brightness and his brain was oppressive, heavy, an unavoidable pressure of pain.

"Guess we don't need that on," she said from the direction of the doorway. "We all already know you look like hell."

Her voice was blissfully cool and shady and it brought a relieving darkness with it as the lights went out. Gibbs let his shoulder sink back finally, neck loosening as his body relaxed into the comforting grayness. The hospital bed was nowhere near the realm of comfortable but it was clean, it smelled antiseptic and that was holy to him in that moment.

"Thank you," he whispered, feeling how thin and tissuey the words sounded as he spoke them.

"Someone helped you shower, huh?"

"Nurse," he answered tersely, swallowing and feeling parched as her voice drew closer.

He felt her lean into the side of the bed, the shift in the air tinted with her familiar perfume and he would never (never) admit to anyone that the scent of it welled instant tears up in his eyes as she leaned close. Not even her, not if he could get away with pretending it was just residual pain and not the ache of having used her as a proverbial mirage for days, a mental oasis. That perfume had been missing from his imagined version of her and to have it close again…

"You look better, actually," she whispered, leaned over the rail. Her hand lifted to brush through his hair and he swallowed hard, forcing himself to keep from flinching as she rubbed it between her fingers. “Handsome.”

"Liar," he rasped, feeling his emotions claw up his throat. "Hand's broken."

"We knew that already, though. What else?"

"Concussion, dehydration, bruised ribs. Got a hell of a headache." Admitting to that much had been the easy part. That was all information she would have sussed out anyhow, even if he hadn’t told her himself. "Where'd you go?"

Her pretty face went blank and cool, those usually warm brown eyes hardening darker and sharper. "I had an interrogation to handle."

"You make him cry?" he asked quickly. Those eyes went round and wide, eyebrows up in a non-answer as she looked at him. Her stalwart silence said it all, she didn't even need to speak to acknowledge the verbal thrashing she had likely given the younger brother. "Tha's my girl."

“ _Am I_ , though?” she questioned sharply, voice pitched higher than it had been, her left hand spreading out so that her palm cooled against his forehead, the gentle weight combating the pressure of the headache. He felt pinched, pressed between his own pain and the hurt that he heard in the sound of her voice.

He couldn’t stand it when she sounded broken… especially when it was his fault. "Kept seeing you. Usually when I started to fall asleep."

"Just dreams," she brushed off, though he could still easily hear her emotions in her voice. Her concern was often purposely transparent and he usually privately appreciated it. It was everything else that he was hearing in her tone that had him turning his head to check on her. Her exhaustion was as physically evident in her tired eyes as the sound of it in her voice had been.

"No, Jack… it was different."

"It doesn't matter. You should - "

" _Stop_." His voice had clapped the room silent and still and when he looked at her face her head was drawn back, one brow lifted and lips in an unbroken line.

She waited then, her fingers just under his jaw and pulling his head slowly, carefully, to the side. She tipped her own a little, eyes meeting his as she silently questioned his frustration. Gibbs swallowed under the side of her hand, taking in another breath as her fingers rose, the tips of them tracing over his lips while she watched his eyes go lidded and thin in response.

"Why me?" she asked, whispering the words just as lightly as she traced the long and rough stubble on his cheek. He leaned into the touch and nudged, lifting his head at an angle to try and catch her fingers on an itch that had been bothering him all morning. She half laughed and rubbed her thumb up and down his cheek. Why _her_ indeed?

He’d assumed the answer was obvious - but Jack was the sorta woman who wanted to hear things out loud. He could give her that at the very least. "'Cause I needed you."

"You didn't have to go to all this trouble just to tell me that," she whispered just before she tapped lightly on his nose. " _That_ I sorta already knew."

***

She had stayed until he had fallen asleep, teasing and comforting him and in reality rather than fevered dreams or in his hazy imagination. Her hands had been cool comfort and every brush of her lips across his face had truly, finally, existed.

Which was why he’d been so startlingly disillusioned the next morning by Ellie walking in and telling him, “ _Hey, they said I could bust you outta here_!”

Not that he didn’t appreciate Ellie driving him home, attentively making sure he didn’t knock his head or smack his cast into anything. She had very carefully loaded him into one of the NCIS vehicles and they were halfway between the hospital and home and he was only mildly feeling like a toddler who needed adult supervision.

Not having Jack to wake up to had been a surprisingly large disappointment. One that had him finally assessing the direction of their relationship now that he could more accurately put one thought after another.

“Gibbs?”

“What?” he asked gently, realizing he had missed a question.

“I asked if you needed to stop anywhere before home?”

He just shook his head in response, using his left hand to half wave it off as he slumped farther back in the passenger seat.

“Sure you don’t want - “

“Just wanna be home, El,” he grumbled, feeling his darker emotions get the better of him or a moment. “I figured… never mind.”

“You figured what?”

“Nothin’.” He'd just figured that maybe she could stay, that maybe he'd said enough to keep her close. “It’s nothin’.”

“Jack’s already at the house, Gibbs.”

He felt his shoulders relax back into the seat even before he realized that he had exhaled relief, before he heard her knowing ‘hmm’ of acknowledgement from beside him. He never wanted to seem quite so transparent as he obviously had since they’d left the hospital and he bristled slightly under her scrutiny even as his chest warmed from the inside out.

“She could’ve told me that at least.”

“You have absolutely _no_ idea, Gibbs," Ellie accused, changing lanes abruptly as she shook her head. “What she went through for you? What she accomplished? The woman showed up on SecNav’s doorstep and refused to leave until she agreed to a traceable wire transfer.”

He watched them swing into his neighborhood, two streets away from his house, thankfully. Ellie could be rough edged when she lost her patience and he didn't have much of his energy back, at least not enough to spar with her over Sloane.

Still… “The Navy would never - ”

“Her career was the collateral, Gibbs. Do you even see the way she looks at you?”

Only every damn day. “I saw her every time I closed my eyes, Ellie, _I get it._ ”

It was the quietest the car had been, rolling down his street and toward his house, getting him that much closer to being home.

“Trust me.” _With_ Jack.

She seemed to accept his assertion, pulling over in front of his house with a sigh. “Be nice when she tells you that Vance is enforcing a week off duty. It wasn’t her choice to make.”

“I will,” he answered as she put the car in park, watching her hand pause on the ignition.

“Don’t you get out of that seat until I’m over there.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered, nodding as he turned his head and studied his house with relief. His annoyance at being treated like an invalid was tempered by how beautiful they both were in loving him.

'Beautiful' was Jack Sloane, comfortable on the porch, arms crossed and her body relaxed against the porch rail. Her head tipped with an affectionate smile as she watched him wave his cast back and forth in front of the window, waiting for Ellie to fuss over him some more. She waved her fingertips back and lifted her jaw, giving him a promising wink and a smirk.

When he had made her his mirage he hadn’t expected to live long enough to see the imagined become real. Having her waiting so casually on his porch… it didn’t seem entirely possible. To be home, with her.

“You see her too, right?” he asked Bishop as she swung his door open, voice low and purposely too quiet for Jack to hear.

Ellie just gave him a sympathetic smirk, “Oh, she’s very real, Gibbs. I promise.”


End file.
